Information Processing

What I have observed in my observations is that my coop teacher helps her students' learning through the sensory memory, working memory, and long term memory.

She first writes things on the board while she talks about them which uses the iconic memory and echoic memory. She also gets students attention by telling them certain things will be on a test which falls under focused attention. She pauses after questions so that more students start paying attention when it is quiet and allows them time to think about the answer (wait time). She also does a hand clapping pattern that students have to repeat which makes them pay attention (stimulus attention). Her class room is very clean and organized to help the cognitive arousal. All of this together helps to move the memories from sensory to working memory.
  In working memory the teacher since the teacher presents the information both verbally and audially it activates the executive function which helps students to retain the information 50% more. She also has acronyms, a type of mnemonics, for using sine and cosine. This helps students to encode the memory into long term memory.
  The teacher also teaches information over a period of time which is called distributed practice. She will include solving for x in similar triangles and using sine and cosine which concepts continue throughout the year. This also helps to make the retrieval process easier for students when they have to recall some previously learned information.